Shannon McEnerney | May 11, 2010
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| Courtesy photo |
| Professional-in-Residence Joe Coleman, right, has reported on Japanese culture for more than a decade. In this shot from 2009, he videotaped temple-goers lighting incense. He returns to Japan this month as an Abe Fellow to work on a research project. |
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The leaves are used in upscale Japanese restaurants as garnishes. The couple picked the leaves that would bring the highest price at a market where restaurateurs bought their garnishes.
This work is not very labor intensive, but it allows the elderly to work and contribute to society. The couple, Coleman said, had their best earning month in November, when they made $7,000. Another older woman was able to help her grandson make a down payment on a house.
These are the stories the former Associated Press bureau chief in Tokyo has collected about about the older generations of workers in Japan. At the end of the month, Coleman will return to Japan to further his research on an aging Japan – an opportunity provided to him through the Abe Fellowship Program.
Coleman’s research proposal, titled “The Silver Bullet? Putting the elderly to work in an Aging Japan,” will focus on Japan’s changing society from a youthful one to an elderly one. Coleman lived in Japan for 11 years on and off, and often wrote stories about how the workforce is aging due to the low birth rate in Japan.
“This kind of story is important because Japan is the most rapidly aging top economy in the world,” Coleman said. “It’ll be interesting to see whether they’ll be able to maintain economic power despite rapid aging in society.”
There was a baby boom in Japan in the late 1940s, Coleman said. It lasted only three years, and those “babies” started retiring in 2007, when many of them turned 60.
“This is something I wanted to look into further, more in depth,” he said.
The Abe Fellowship Program provides funding for research on topics of "global pressing concern" in the social science setting. Academics and non-academic researchers apply for the fellowships, which are sponsored by the Social Science Research Council, the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership and the American Council of Learned Societies. Funding for the Abe Fellowship Program is provided by Center for Global Partnership.
In preparation for his six weeks of the fellowship, he’s been working with a researcher in Japan who is helping to set up interviews and appointments. Coleman will also be going to a factory that hires older workers.
Coleman said he was surprised when he was awarded the fellowship. The application materials, he said, suggest that the committee prefers someone who doesn’t know much about Japan, so he said he wasn’t hopeful because of all the time he spent in Japan.
Dean of the IU School of Journalism Brad Hamm said he knew that Coleman was applying for the fellowship and was excited when he won. The fellowship is competitive, Hamm said.
“To win it is a terrific accomplishment,” Hamm said of the Abe. “I have known a lot of people who have applied. Joe is a perfect candidate because he is fluent in both the language and the culture.”
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| Photo by James Brosher |
| During his years in Japan, Coleman observed and wrote about the culture. The idea for his research project is older generations in the workforce. |
“It was a little late,” Coleman said. “Already China was the main Asia story and there was less focus on Japan.”
In the 1990s, attention on Japan was intense. Coleman wrote a lot about every day life: getting a haircut in Japan, going to a wedding, even playing Santa Claus for a local day care center.
“I could write a story about anything – my editors loved it,” Coleman said, “but as China became the big story, it took attention off Japan. China’s rise as a world power is a much more dynamic story than aging in Japan.”
He is working on a magazine article, and at least one newspaper so far has agreed to take a feature story. But ultimately, Coleman said he is trying to use his research to put together a book. Right now he is compiling all the information from his work on Japan during the 1990s.
“This is something I’ve been interested in writing about for a long time,” Coleman said, describing how factories in Japan alter machinery so it causes less wear and tear on limbs and allows the older people to continue to work.
“Elderly people who are more engaged in society are healthier, more content, less prone to depression … There is something important about feeling socially engaged and youthful in old age,” Coleman said.
But many, such as the 85-year-old woman Coleman met in the southwest village, are staying active and sustaining the economy while also economically contributing to their families.
“If we can find ways of keeping the elderly active, socially and economically engaged, that could be a good thing,” Coleman said. “Those are the kinds of things I want to write about.”
When Coleman returns from his six-week stint in Japan, he will be returning with more knowledge and experience of the country than he had before.
“Part of teaching is bringing back into the classroom what you’ve learned in the past and current times,” Hamm said. “Joe is a talented writer and thinker and I expect that his project will be very good.”
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